Star Mother, page 3
I let go of him and turned. He caught my wrist, confusion aging his face. Trying my best to smile, I gently pulled his fingers off one by one.
“Don’t follow me,” I pleaded.
I ran with all my strength. Or rather, I outran my doubts, my concerns, my fears. I ran clear to the tent erected at the village center, where the night air felt like midsummer day. Where our men still debated between the names of Gretcha and Anya.
My anxiety drove me to burst past the heavy flap of the tent door, drawing the eyes of everyone in the space. I was not the only woman present. Both Gretcha and Anya were there, along with their mothers and our wisewoman, whose nose had warts and whose hands were knobby with age.
Almost immediately, the blacksmith tried to turn me out. “You are not needed here.”
And I countered, “I will be star mother.”
The hush that bloomed around the statement was deafening. Gretcha looked at me with shock. Anya, with relief.
My father, his face long, asked, “Ceris? What did you say?”
Coming around the blacksmith, I met first my father’s eyes, then the eyes of our priest. “I will be the star mother. I volunteer. There have been no others.” It was a guess, but if the council still convened, then neither Anya nor Gretcha had accepted the duty. And since neither spoke against me, I suspected they, like Idlysi, were too terrified to say yes, and too afraid to say no.
Silence fell for nearly a full minute, until the priest repeated, “You volunteer, Ceris Wenden?”
“You’re to be married soon.” My father’s voice scratched, as if he spoke through a throat half-closed.
I glanced at Anya, her eyes wide with fear and hope. “I suspect Caen will be wed before winter.” I managed a small smile, and Anya clutched at her breast, her eyes glimmering with tears. Not willing to let my own emotions surface, I shifted my attention to the priest. “But I must be star mother. I will bring honor to Endwever and my family. I will have my name remembered and my face among the stars. I will dwell in paradise with my loved ones. I will sacrifice so that the others may not be persuaded.” I swallowed, hoping my words sounded prideful and not desperate.
The priest shook his head. “You understand that a mortal body cannot survive the power of a star.”
“I have been faithful all my life.” I clenched and unclenched my hands in the folds of my skirt, where the others might not see them. “I know what I give, and what will be taken. How much longer will the Sun wait for us to decide?”
Others whispered to one another, and I realized I was not the only one afraid. Our people had kept the Sun, the greatest god of the sky, waiting three days already.
“Ceris,” my father murmured, but he said no more. He felt the heat of the cathedral’s fire through the heavy walls of the tent. He knew the god watched us. He knew what greatness I would bring to him, even if it meant losing me. And I hoped the strain in his voice meant that losing me mattered.
Softening, I moved to him and took his hand. “You will see my legend in the night sky, Papa.”
The point of his throat bobbed. “But must it be you?”
“The first volunteer has claim.” The priest turned to Gretcha, Anya, and their mothers. “You may return home unburdened.”
All four women’s eyes shone like Sunlit brooks. Gretcha’s mother fled, daughter in tow, as though I would change my mind if she was not swift. Anya’s mother bowed to me, and Anya mouthed, Thank you, before departing.
I hoped she would visit Caen first and foremost.
“You must go to the cathedral.” The priest spoke reverently, and I couldn’t help but feel he would have used the same tone at my wedding as he bound Caen’s hands to mine, my body draped in a dress I now would never wear. Fear and pain stabbed my midsection, and I bit my tongue to keep them trapped there.
I would have to leave immediately, or I would never fulfill my promise. After the way Anya had looked at me . . . breaking my promise was something I could not do.
“You must enter through the front doors, despite the heat,” he continued. “You must bear it and walk, unshod, to the altar in the eye.”
For years I’d dreamed of being Caen’s wife. Of keeping a house for him, of lying with him, of bearing his children. I’d dreamed of waking up to his face every morning and falling asleep to his hands every night.
As the priest spoke, those images became more and more brittle, until they began to crumble to dust at my feet. If I woke up to Caen’s face, there would be no smile on his lips. If I lay with him, there would be no lust in his hands. For him, there had only ever been Anya.
Why should three hearts break, when it was needed of only one?
“You must kneel at it and offer a prayer to the Sun. Offer yourself. If you are accepted, He will take you up.”
I held my tears until I left the tent. Now that I’d set my fate in motion, I felt a strong pull toward the cathedral. But my sisters and my mother stood in my path, leaning against one another, holding hands, connected in a way that was both foreign and heartwarming to me. Already I was bringing us together, and I hadn’t even reached the cathedral.
Walking toward them, I embraced Pasha first, then my mother, leaving a kiss on her cheek. When I reached Idlysi, she threw her arms around me so fiercely she squeezed the air from my lungs. “Thank you,” she whispered. “I love you, Ceris. I will never forget you.”
I couldn’t remember the last time someone had told me they loved me. “I love you, too,” I croaked before moving away. The pull toward the cathedral intensified, overwhelming the sweet feeling that had begun to build in my breast. I felt His eyes on me now. I felt His impatience and His readiness as a heavy wool coat.
The others watched me as well. Streaming from homes, the council tent . . .
But I kept my focus on the cathedral and its wings of fire, burning as brightly as the Sun.
The air sweltered as I moved closer, unbearably hot as I approached the doors. Sweat puddled in my hair and the small of my back. I licked my lips and tasted salt. My hands shook as I lifted fingers to the door.
The handle burned me.
I bit down on a shriek and jerked my hand away, cradling it to my breast. Had the Sun rejected me, then?
Don’t look back, I warned myself. Let them be happy.
I grabbed the handle with both hands and wrenched the door open, the searing breath of a god enveloping me.
I don’t remember stepping forward, only the thud of the door closing behind me. The scorching onslaught of air made me stagger and fall, my hands and knees burning against the stone floor. The ends of my hair curled, and I breathed hard through my mouth as heat stole the moisture from my tongue, nose, and eyes. I felt I could not stand, but the stone blistered, and I had to.
Hurriedly, I removed my shoes and trekked farther inside. The air rippled as water. I felt faint as I passed through it, my hands and the soles of my feet throbbing.
There was no door to block me from the eye—the round lily garden at the center of the cathedral. Only an archway. The garden was burned away to nothing, the grass disintegrated, the flowers charcoal staining my feet. My sweat-drenched clothes stuck to me as a second skin. My pulse thudded beneath my skull. My body grew hollow and rough. I forgot my anguish, distracted by the scorching of my body. Of the marble pillars that glowed with heat ten paces away, standing like sentinels to the lily garden.
I dragged my legs, each heavy as a newly fallen tree. I fell into the ash, the grit sticking to my eyes, no tears left to wash it away. The skin on my lips split and dried as I crawled forward, regret burning up like tares after harvest.
I tried to pray, but my thoughts were on fire.
Take me, oh Sun. Make me star mother. I bow to Thy will.
I collapsed, skin charring and flaking away. I reached one burning hand to the altar. Touched it.
The light blinded me, and I was undone.
CHAPTER 3
And then everything was different.
There was no roaring fire, no blistering heat, no pain. I opened my eyes to a room that was not quite a room, with walls that seemed to stretch out forever on all sides and a bright, empty expanse above me. An enclosure that was there but not quite there. A place like a tapestry, its stitches not yet pulled tight. But it was calm, and the light was tinted a soft, rosy pink.
A luminous section loomed before me on one of those forever walls, like a window into the heart of heaven, and before it stood a man, perfected as though by the hands of a master sculptor, who put me in mind of a bonfire and a lion. He stood by the outpouring of light, or maybe was the outpouring of light, or both. He is so difficult to describe, and even now my language does not have words to do Him justice. But He was there, and He gazed into the brightness as one might gaze into a garden, peaceful and still.
I was . . . not lying down, but neither was I standing. Yet as I moved to right myself, I noticed I was not myself at all, but something else. Something that, like the room and the man, was difficult to describe. Like my skin was made of crystal, glimmering and hard, yet still pliable. I was not clothed, not exactly, but neither was I naked. As though this new, crystalline version of me were a carapace built to my body without emphasizing its subtle details. Unable to interpret them, perhaps.
“Come,” said the being at the window. His voice was masculine, deep, and all encompassing, as though the very room we stood in was His mouth.
I oriented myself and walked toward Him, though I couldn’t feel anything solid beneath my feet. The brightness should have hurt my eyes, but somehow it didn’t. I stood beside Him and looked into His brilliance. His skin was made of flame, and His hair billowed like a lion’s mane. The glory of His face made it hard to distinguish any individual features, but I thought He had a strong brow and nose, and eyes as white gold as the Sun.
The Sun. The Sun.
I thought to prostrate myself, and yet couldn’t remember how.
Lifting a finger, He pointed above Him, where the walls that weren’t walls gave way to open sky. “See there.”
I looked, and the brightness wasn’t mere light anymore, but a vast heaven brighter and more beautiful than any night sky I had ever seen in Endwever. Endless stars stippled a black velvet sky like hosts of angels. Never before had I seen the colors of the stars, but here, in this place, I could—white, red, yellow, even blue. So many colors and sizes, such utter majesty.
I should not have been able to identify where the Sun pointed—it was a simple gesture among millions of stars. And yet I could. An empty spot amidst the many pinpricks of light, spilled like glass beads. A tiny point, vanished.
A grave, an absence.
He was showing me the star that had died, the loss that had prompted Him to seek a means of replacing it. Yet replacement seemed cruel. One does not merely replace a child. Sorrow spun off the Sun as surely as light did. If anything, that was the most tangible thing in this place. I had never before considered that the gods might feel as we did.
“I’m sorry,” I offered, feeling small.
The Sun merely nodded. “It is how the passage of time works. They are not meant to be forever.” And finally He looked at me, His gaze penetrating and absolute in a way that struck both awe and fear into my core. He was the most beautiful and most horrifying creature I had ever laid eyes on. There was an ancientness to His face, and yet, if I were to stitch His likeness into a tapestry, He would not look any older that a man in his midforties. Not that I had the talent to capture the visage of a god, nor the dyes to try.
He was a god.
“There is purpose to all things, Ceris.” My name sounded powerful on His lips. Of course He knew my name. Had He not watched Endwever all this time? Had He not reached down to light the torch? Had I not felt His expectations the moment I whispered, I will be star mother? “There is a balance in the universe, which is ever shifting. It is never easy and always painful. Your kind glimpses only a sliver of it.”
I wasn’t sure what to say, or if there could be any response to such a claim. So I simply nodded.
The Sun looked out the window again, then stepped back, studying me fully. I felt self-conscious, as though He could see more of me than I could of Him. As though He could see past skin, blood, and bone to my very soul. To my surprise, His lips curved up in a soft smile.
“You are unexpected,” He said. “I know the burden the stars bring to mortals. Few volunteer, without persuasion.”
A pain like a slender skewer pierced my chest as memories of my home, Caen, and my forsaken future fluttered to life. But the wonder of my surroundings, of Him, staved off my mourning. “I might be mortal,” I tried, “but I am farseeing.”
The Sun nodded, seemingly content with this answer. “Have you lain with mortal men?”
Were my body my own, it would have burned with the question, but this crystalline form did not react. “Does it matter?” I asked, feeling every sultry daydream about Caen unravel in the back of my mind. “N-No. Not yet.”
He nodded, solemn, but the soberness did not hinder His light. “Ceris.”
I held my breath.
“If you wish to turn back, I will allow you to do so.” He looked away from me, at something that was there yet not there. Something on a plane beyond my perception. “It will not be a slight to your people.”
I swallowed, stiff with anxiety. My heart raced as though I stood at the peak of the highest mountain, my toes lined up with its edge, my body ready to jump.
Struggling for my voice, I said, “Do . . . I not please you?”
He shook His head, still not meeting my eyes. “I always give the volunteers a chance to change their mind. Only one, but I give it.”
I worried my lip and peered up at the glorious sky. “And if I don’t take the chance now, I won’t be able to later?”
“No. The law must be honored.”
I hugged myself and slowly drew my gaze from the stars.
“I will hurt you.” His voice was hushed, but the words startled me. “I do not wish to, but I will. Such is the manner of my existence.”
My heart pounded. Not quickly as it had before, but hard, like my chest was an unwanted wall in a cottage that needed to be torn down.
He was giving me a chance to leave. To go home. Surely I could ask for a crown of light or some other favor to show my people that I was not unwanted. To bring them honor without forsaking my life.
But honor wasn’t the true reason I’d come.
“I’ll stay.” My quietness slid under His own. “I’ve made my choice. I will stay.”
He had no reaction to my statement beyond a simple nod. His expression was bright and hard to read, but it seemed . . . sad? But why would a god such as the Sun be sad that a mortal woman had willingly answered His call?
“Come.” He stepped away from the window light, and it faded behind Him. As we moved forward, the not-walls shifted around us. “This is the most I can withhold my power, the simplest form I can take.”
He didn’t touch me, but walked with the air of a king, as He should. I followed Him two steps before croaking, “Now?” I turned and peered up at the stars overhead, then curled in on myself, abashed for having been so bold with a god.
Thankfully, the Sun was not put out. “Time may be eternal, but it should not be wasted.”
I swallowed against a dry throat. He was right. What reason was there to wait? The Sun would not court me—I was a mere mortal. I would be star mother, and I knew very little of what would become of me beyond that. But I knew there was no quaint cottage awaiting me, nor would there ever be a marriage wreath hung over my bed.
Feigning courage I didn’t feel, I straightened, clasped my hands behind my back, and bowed. “I am ready.”
His voice was not as encompassing when He said, “I wish to thank you for your service, and also ask your forgiveness.”
I didn’t entirely understand what He meant just then. The space changed—I sensed it, though I didn’t see it happen. Were I to describe it visually, our surroundings would sound exactly the same as where we’d just met. And yet it was different. The silence was more complete, like a circle, and senses I didn’t know I possessed came awake within me, noticing things beyond smells and sounds and sights. There was something deeply intimate about this place, and in my heart, I readied to complete my task. The Sun had waited days already. A star needed to be born.
I didn’t grasp His request for forgiveness until He touched me. It was a searing touch against my arm, like hot iron pressed to my skin, but the instinct that told me to jerk away was muted, suppressed. My sense of direction faltered, and there was no up or down, no left or right. And then that touch was everywhere, everywhere, across every particle of my being, and then deep, deep inside me, lighting me like a pyre, scorching and peeling and crumbling.
I think I screamed. I must have. But it’s hard to remember, even now. Neither can I recall the end of it, for after the consummation, there was only darkness.
CHAPTER 4
When the darkness ended, I found myself in another room much like the first two, yet very different. I was surrounded by not-walls and rested on a large not-bed. Everything was tinted crystal and pink. It took me several days to leave my bed and its canopy long enough to notice that even here there was no ceiling, only an endless night sky filled with stars.
I should have been ash. I should have burned to smoke and floated away into the heavens. But I was still me, the strange, crystalline version of me that existed in this place.
It was there in that room, in that bed, when I finally let myself mourn. I cried for Caen. For my love for him, for my sacrifice, for the future and family we would never have. I felt his loss most keenly of all, and though I had chosen this path for him, I anguished over what I had sacrificed.
Second, I mourned for myself. I mourned being alone in a strange place. I mourned my happy, playful self, because I was sure she had been scorched away along with my innocence. I mourned the emptiness of my room, for I had given of myself freely, and yet there was no man or god to lie beside me in bed, to stroke my hair and love me, to cherish me for what we had given each other. I saw no one but the servants—two unfamiliar godlings who gave me pitiful and sympathetic looks as they saw to my physical needs—and they did not speak to me. They did their work and nothing else. I had thought myself alone before, while surrounded by family, but I had never known true loneliness until I became a star mother.
